Seeking subject-matter expert nominees on the future of human welfare and societal change. Please send confidential nominations about the most relevant, prolific, and well-respected experts in your field who study issues related to the future for humanity and societal change (e.g., economic conditions, public health, freedoms, happiness, life expectancy, functional institutions, technological innovations, peace, education, social capital). Self-nominations are welcome. Top nominees will be invited to share their insights and eventually share a distillation of these expert opinions with the academic community and society at large. For more information and the online nomination form, visit the website.
The EuroScience Open Forum invites proposals for the 2022 edition of the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF2022). If you are interested in contributing to the dialogue around science and discussing cutting-edge scientific results and their impact on society, submit your proposal by November 15, 2021. Click here for more information.
The Interdisciplinary Network on Rural Population Health and Aging, funded by the National Institute on Aging, invites investigators to submit proposals for pilot research related to U.S. rural population health and aging trends and disparities. Projects will begin as early as March 15, 2022. Grant proposals are due December 10, 2021. Find out more in the RFP here.
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences is seeking submissions for an issue on “Building an Open Qualitative Science.” The purpose of this call is to roll out American Voices Project (AVP)-based qualitative analysis by opening up the AVP dataset to qualified scholars and analysts. We welcome research on the many topics—including health, poverty, politics, protest, employment, coping, and anomie—that the AVP interviews can assist in understanding. The submission deadline is January 5, 2022. For more information on the topics covered in this call for articles and the submission instructions and timeline, click here.
The Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research book series is seeking research for two upcoming volumes. The first volume, "Conjugal Trajectories: Relationship Beginnings, Change, and Dissolutions," will delve into relationship formation and change over time. This volume is being edited by Ana Josefina Cuevas Hernández of the University of Colima, and Sampson Lee Blair of the State University of New York-Buffalo. The second volume, "Resilience and Familism: The Dynamic Nature of Families in the Philippines," focuses upon the ever-changing structures and norms within Filipino families. This volume is being edited by Clarence M. Batan of the University of Santo Tomas (Manila), Sampson Lee Blair of the State University of New York, and Veronica L. Gregorio of the National University of Singapore. The submission deadline for both of these volumes is April 15, 2022. Additional information about the book series can be found here.
The new book series Higher Education and the City, from Johns Hopkins University Press, is seeking scholarly, book-length manuscript submissions that examine higher education ecosystems through the lens of urban change, with an emphasis on the past and future of cities and metropolitan areas. Contribute to ongoing dialogues about relevant cultural and social issues, the pursuit of innovation, and the relationship between higher education and economic and community development. For information on contributing to the series, visit the website or contact book series editor Costas Spirou.
The Pacific Sociological Association (PSA) seeks submissions to present at its 93rd annual meeting on April 7–10, 2022, in Sacramento, CA. The theme of the meeting is “Telling Our Stories: Collective Memory and Narratives of Race, Gender, and Community Identity.” Pending status of the COVID-19 pandemic, the conference is planned to have both onsite/in-person and virtual components. Submissions to present open until November 1, 2021 (December 3 for undergraduate students); indicate your preference for in-person or virtual. For more information, visit the PSA website.
The 12th International Conference on Health, Wellness, and Society will be on the theme of “Government and Society Collaborations: Responding to Pandemics” and will take place at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa on September 8–9, 2022. The conference will explore the fields of human health and wellness, and in particular their social interconnections and implications, and invites proposals on several themes. The advance proposal deadline is November 8, 2021. For more information on the conference, visit the website.
The 22nd International Conference on Knowledge, Culture, and Change in Organizations will be on the theme of “Organizational Memetics: Nature-Centered Perspectives on Organizations,” and will take place at the University of Auckland in New Zealand on January 14–15, 2022. The conference will explore new possibilities in knowledge, culture, and change management within the broader context of the nature and future of organizations and their impact on society. It invites proposals on several themes. The deadline is December 14, 2021. For more information, visit the website.
The South Carolina Sociological Association (SCSA) seeks proposals for thematic papers, research papers, panel sessions, workshops, poster sessions, and author-meets-critic sessions for its 2022 annual meeting at the University of South Carolina Upstate, Spartanburg, SC, February 25–February 26, 2022, on the theme of “Paying Sociology Forward: Lessons We Want Others to (Un)Learn.” Preference given to proposals received prior to December 31, 2021. Find more information on the SCSA website.
The 18th International Conference on Technology, Knowledge, and Society will be on the theme of “Trust, Surveillance, Democracy,” and will take place at the National Changhua University of Education, Changhua City, Taiwan on April 15–16, 2022. The conference will explore the complex and subtle relationships between technology, knowledge, and society and invites proposals on several themes. The proposal deadline is January 15, 2022. For more information, visit the website.
The Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies’ Visiting Researchers Program in Economic Sociology and Political Economy is intended for researchers from the fields of economic sociology and comparative and international political economy and offers stays ranging from two to 12 months. Applications are welcome from professors based either in Germany or abroad, as well as young postdoctoral and doctoral researchers. Submit your application in English or German by October 31, 2021, for the following summer semester (starting April 1). For further information on the program and how to apply, visit the website.
American Philosophical Society is accepting new applications for the Lewis and Clark Fund and the Phillips Fund grant programs. Information and application instructions for all of the society's programs can be accessed on the website. The deadline for the Lewis and Clark Fund is November 15, 2021, and the deadline for the Phillips Fund is March 1, 2022. Click on the "Grants" tab at the top of the homepage. Direct questions to Linda Musumeci, director of grants and fellowships.
The Nineteenth-Century Studies Association has established the BIPOC Scholar Travel Award to recognize the excellent work of scholars who identify as Black, Indigenous, or other underrepresented people of color. This award is given to a BIPOC scholar whose conference paper demonstrates significant ingenuity, intervention, or promise in the field of nineteenth-century studies. The winner will receive $500 to defray the cost of attending the 2022 conference on radicalism and reform on March 16–19, 2022, in Rochester, NY, at which scholars will present their work. You can find more information about the BIPOC Travel Award here. The association also offers the Faculty Development Travel Award, the Student Travel Grant, and the Scheuerle-Zatlin International Travel Award. The application deadline for these awards is January 15, 2022.
Tyson Brown, Duke University, has been named the inaugural Duke Presidential Fellow.
Martyn Pickersgill, University of Edinburgh, has been elected to be a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences.
Laurie Schaffner retired from the sociology department at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Ruha Benjamin, Princeton University, was cited in the September 17, 2021, Washington Post article, “A Detroit Community College Professor is Fighting Silicon Valley’s Surveillance Machine. People Are Listening.”
Priya Fielding-Singh, University of Utah, authored the op-ed “Free School Meal Programs Don’t Just Feed Hungry Kids—They’re a Major Win for Moms,” in the August 13, 2021, online edition of the Washington Post.
René D. Flores, University of Chicago, and Juan Manuel Pedroza, University of California-Santa Cruz, commented on results from the 2010 Census data in the September 15, 2021, Associated Press article “Multiracial Boom Reflects U.S. Racial, Ethnic, Complexity.”
Colin Jerolmack, New York University, authored the opinion piece “They Couldn’t Drink Their Water. And Still, They Stayed Quiet,” in the September 17, 2021, edition of the New York Times.
Kaitlynn Mendes, Western University, was quoted in the September 21, 2021, Washington Post article, “How to Talk to Your Kids about the Devious Licks School Tik Tok Challenge.”
David S. Meyer, University of California-Irvine, spoke about how Occupy Wall Street influenced contemporary U.S. politics on the September 14, 2021, episode of American Public Media’s Marketplace, on National Public Radio.
Laurel Smith-Doerr, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, authored the op-ed “Universities Should Look in the Mirror,” in the September 15, 2021, edition of Inside Higher Ed.
Stacy Torres, University of California-San Francisco, authored the op-ed “There's a Time to Work and a Time to Grieve. Mourning Is Its Own Kind of Labor,” in the September 15, 2021, online edition of USA Today
Teresa Irene Gonzales, University of Massachusetts-Lowell, Building a Better Chicago: Race & Community Resistance to Urban Redevelopment (New York University Press, 2021).
Annette Lareau, University of Pennsylvania, Listening to People: A Practical Guide to Interviewing, Participant Observation, Data Analysis, and Writing It All Up (University of Chicago Press, 2021).
stef m. shuster, Michigan State University, Trans Medicine: The Emergence and Practice of Treating Gender (New York University Press, 2021).
Siri Suh, Brandeis University, Dying to Count: Post-Abortion Care and Global Reproductive Health Politics in Senegal (Rutgers University Press, 2021).
Richard Lachmann, professor of sociology at the University at Albany-The State University of New York, passed away on September 19, 2021. Born in 1956 in New York City, Lachmann received his PhD from Harvard University and has been on the faculty of the University at Albany since 1990. ASA awarded his book Capitalists in Spite of Themselves: Elite Conflict and Economic Transitions in Early Modern Europe (Oxford University Press, 2000) the 2003 Distinguished Scholarly Book Award. He served as the chair of the ASA Section on Political Sociology, 2019–2020, and chaired the Section on Comparative-Historical Sociology, 2005–2006. He will be remembered as a leading figure in political sociology and as a warm and loving friend. Click here to read the obituary written by his family. The department of sociology at the University at Albany will host an event to celebrate Lachmann's contributions on April 28, 2022. All colleagues are invited to attend. Contact [email protected] to learn more.
James W. Loewen’s research, teaching, publications, and legal testimony turned the careful, rigorous practice of sociology into an instrument for pursuing social justice. His death on August 19, 2021, was commemorated by a host of obituaries, including in the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, and a special website set up by Tougaloo College, where he taught during the formative years of his career.
Loewen was renowned for his best-selling book Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (Simon and Schuster, 1996), which sold more than one million copies and received an American Book Award in 1996. The American Sociological Association recognized his contributions, with the Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities’ Oliver Cromwell Cox Book Award (for Anti-Racist Scholarship) in 1996 and the Cox-Johnson-Frazier Award in 2012, given for work in the intellectual traditions of Oliver Cox, Charles S. Johnson, and E. Franklin Frazier—one of the highest honors the ASA bestows.
Following publication of Lies my Teacher Told Me, Loewen produced a flood of books and articles puncturing standard accounts of American history, from Christopher Columbus to the Vietnam War. Loewen did not just debunk mythologies. He also spotlighted pervasive racist practices. In Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism (The New Press, 2005), he chronicled towns that systematically excluded Blacks and other people of color. Expecting to find dozens of such towns, he ended up with thousands. In this, as in his other work, Loewen focused on bringing his findings to those publics that were central to the phenomena he studied, traveling around the country and meeting with residents of former sundown towns.
Just as important as Loewen’s research findings were his contributions to the legal struggles intrinsic to the topics he studied. In 1974, while at Tougaloo, Loewen collaborated with Charles Sallis on a high-school textbook manuscript on the history of Mississippi, Mississippi: Conflict and Change. When the Mississippi State Textbook Purchasing Board refused to adopt the book, Loewen sued the board and its members for depriving them of their rights guaranteed and secured by the First, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States (Loewen v. Turnipseed). Five years later, Loewen won. In the meantime, the manuscript received the Lillian Smith Book Award in 1976, and the book was eventually published by Pantheon in 1980. Loewen’s statistical testimony as an expert witness played a key role in redistricting cases. His book Social Science in the Courtroom (Lexington Books, 1982) became a standard reference of those involved in civil rights litigation. He also weighed in as an expert witness on cases involving employment discrimination, residential desegregation, jury selection, and standardized testing.
Loewen’s contributions as a teacher complemented his impact in the public sphere. He helped train undergraduates and build the PhD program at Tougaloo, then taught at the University of Vermont (1975–1997), La Trobe University in Australia (1981), and the Catholic University of America (1997–2021). Enabling students to better understand how racism worked was always central to his pedagogy.
While Loewen is celebrated as both a historian and a legal scholar, he was always a sociologist. He earned a BA in sociology at Carleton College in 1964 and a PhD in sociology at Harvard University in 1968. The “sociological imagination” was central to his practice. To celebrate Loewen is to celebrate the mode of practicing sociology that he embodied—forcefully bringing findings to the attention of those whose lives had been shaped by the social processes uncovered in his research and turning them into collaborators.
Describing Loewen’s accomplishments may convey an image of someone who must have been serious to the point of being dour, but being dedicated and focused never dented his wry sense of humor. From his gleeful admiration for Thorstein Veblen’s ironic social theory to his ability to win a local public radio station’s prizes for creating classical music programming, Loewen was not just a formidable researcher and public figure, but also a playfully broad-gauged intellect.
Peter Evans, University of California-Berkeley and Michael Schwartz, Stony Brook University
Barry Schwartz, age 83, died suddenly on January 6, 2021, of injuries suffered in a bicycle accident. A native of Philadelphia, Schwartz completed his undergraduate degree at Temple University and his master’s degree at the University of Maryland. He earned his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania in 1969, working with Marvin Wolfgang. His initial academic appointment was in 1970 at the University of Chicago. In 1977, Schwartz joined the faculty of the University of Georgia, where he continued until his retirement in 2000.
Schwartz’s dissertation was in the areas of crime and punishment, and he subsequently published a number of writings on prisons and correctional communities. His first professional writings as an assistant professor at the University of Chicago were Simmel-style studies of types and processes such as gift exchange, privacy, waiting, forgiveness, and dominance. This period of his writing culminated in his first book, Queuing and Waiting: Studies in the Social Organization of Access and Delay (University of Chicago Press, 1975). The transition from his prison studies and social psychology writings to culture and collective memory was already evident in Schwartz’s second book, Vertical Classification: A Study in Structuralism and the Sociology of Knowledge (University of Chicago Press, 1981).
Schwartz’s work concerned two central questions: (1) How does culture enter into and shape human perception and understanding? and (2) How do the historical conditions and situational circumstances of groups as diverse as nations, neighborhoods, and local work networks create the specific problems and needs that group culture must then address and resolve? Although there is clearly a persistent interest throughout his oeuvre in both issues, Schwartz’s earlier work focused primarily on the first of these questions, while his later work was devoted to understanding the second.
This change in emphasis in Schwartz’s work became evident by 1982 when his first paper on collective memory was published (“The Social Context of Commemoration: A Study in Collective Memory,” Social Forces, 61, December 1982: 374–402). This was the first of many of Schwartz’s studies examining the ways in which groups of all sizes and types are identified through the historical memories shared by group members, leading him to his original and profound research on the great American presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. By studying these great American presidents, Schwartz believed that the central cultural beliefs and ideals of a group would become manifest.
In addition to his papers in the American Journal of Sociology, the American Sociological Review, and other highly regarded journals, Schwartz’s work on U.S. presidents came to fruition in three major books: George Washington: The Making of An American Symbol (Free Press, 1987); Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Memory (University of Chicago Press, 2000); and Abraham Lincoln in the Post-Heroic Era: History and Memory in the Late Twentieth Century (University of Chicago Press, 2009). Schwartz also wrote on other historical personages and events, including the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, the collective memory of WWII in Germany and the U.S., and, most recently, Jewish and Christian collective memory, as in Memory and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity: A Conversation with Barry Schwartz, ed. Tom Thatcher (SBL Press, 2014).
Conservative by temperament, Schwartz enjoyed gently and often humorously chiding his colleagues and university administrators for policies that he felt departed from traditional academic values. Those of us who had the pleasure of being his colleagues will fondly recall that when Schwartz wished to speak on an issue about which he felt strongly, he would usually begin his comments with a rhetorical “Why?” followed by an invariably interesting explanation of his support for or opposition to the matter under consideration. These were moments we savored.
Schwartz was a gentle, kind, and extraordinarily generous friend and colleague. Graduate students adored him, and he was consistently among the department leaders in the number of graduate students he advised and dissertation committees he chaired. One of his former students recalled how she cherished the moments when he “complimented something I had written, his highest praise would be to say it was ‘very fine.’ Classic Barry.”
As a model of what a scholar, colleague, teacher, and human being should be, Barry Schwartz has marked our own collective memory in an indelible way. Along with his wife of 58 years, Janet Faye Cline Schwartz; his two children, Hal and Sarah; and four grandchildren, Aaron, Ian, Heath, and Asa; all of us who were friends and colleagues of Schwartz will miss him greatly.
James J. Dowd, William Finlay, and Lydia Aletraris, University of Georgia
